DTC

By Shane Murphy. Photos: Shane Murphy, John Carson, Damion Tiernan.

The Driver Training Centre at Lakeside had recently been upgraded with a brand new super smooth asphalt surface, creating an extra level of intrigue and the promise of faster elapsed times.

Twenty-nine entrants rocked up to a chilly but fine winter’s morning. The driver briefing included a warning about the drop-off between the new and ground surface on a number of corners. “Keep it on the island,” was the warning. The first timers were in for a treat.

The morning schedule was run over the short course and after lunch the longer course was utilised.

The finish line for the morning short course and the afternoon long course were normalised, resulting in the short course being about 10 metres longer than previous events.

Once again Gideon and Paul had done a great job and the event kicked off smartly on time. The new surface was tricky in parts but seemed to offer lots of grip in the main.

Seven Sevens were entered, that’s nearly one quarter of the field – power to the clubbies – a great spectacle, almost a takeover.

As expected, the morning session was dominated by Ken and Pauline Graham in their yellow Datsun, followed closely by Gideon and Dick.

I can’t emphasis enough how well Dick drove – on the rev limiter at every opportunity, slick gear changes, hitting his breaking points to pin point accuracy – a joy to behold. And those AO48s hung onto the new surface like “you know what” to a baby’s nappy.

A curiosity, which could only be described as a cosmic intervention, resulted in all Sevens getting incrementally faster over the morning. Then at about mid-morning and with almost military precision, we all got incrementally slower, maintaining almost exactly the same margin across the rising and falling tide.

A couple of minor mechanical troubles, Ken and Pauline suffered an engine misfire. Dick had a throttle issue. Evan had a niggling smoking turbo and Damion was blowing a little oil into his breather.

Seven runs in the morning and we were ready for a lunch break. The sun was shining, the breeze had dropped in intensity – a great way to spend a Sunday morning.

After the lunch break, we set off to tear up the longer track, the layout suiting the more adventurous and more powerful cars.

The club rivalry started to bubble to the surface with Gideon, Jason and Dick all trading faster times in order to emerge on the top of the tables and claim the title “Lotus Club King of the DTC”.

In the end, as everyone tired out, and after seven more runs, Gideon emerged on top of the whole group pipping Ken Graham by 0.125 seconds.

A very sated group packed up the equipment and tootled off home. I am sure a couple of beers were enjoyed once everyone’s respective domiciles were reached.

By Andrew Row.

The November event brought another year of DTCs to a close. Sharing the day with Paul Stokell’s Driving Events has proven a success with LCQ managing full fields all year.

This last DTC for the year was well contested and brought many regular faces. Lots of clubbies in the line up, even after a couple retired early. Dick’s Caterham has certainly found its way up the leaderboard now that the new engine is all sorted. Scoring third on the short track and fourth on the long. The top spots of the day were shared between Jason McGarry and Byron Maxwell on the long and short circuits. The ever hard-charging Graham’s Datsun scoring well for the day as well.

Bride and I had a fairly good day with the usual amount of spanner time searching for our intermittent miss. Some wise character advising we had won the award for most runs completed with most panels left in the pits – gets tedious taking the back off each run to troubleshoot. On the bright side, we think we are now onto the cause, so next year should be smooth sailing after a bit more time in the shed.

Big thank you to Gideon and the rest of the volunteers who make this event run so smoothly. A little effort by many certainly makes Gideon’s job less of a chore. Well done all.

Gideon has trawled through the 2021 results and put together a few awards for the year.

1. Most Improved

Measured against the driver’s previous year’s best time.
Short Track – Mal Gray
Long Track – George “I’ve got new tyres” Row

2. Rookie

For those doing their first season
1 – Anthony Fitzgerald
2 – Bride Moran
3 – Evan Lambkin

3. Most Consistent

Like a regularity
Short Track – Lindsay Close (0.194 seconds)
Long Track – Jason McGarry (0.368 seconds)

4. Fastest Time 2021

Short Track – Jason McGarry – 44.837
Long Track – Byron Maxwell – 52.935

The track record for the short track didn’t tumble this year, but Byron Maxwell knocked Evan off on the long track by quite a margin. Jason McGarry knocking at the door of the record on both tracks. Some have come to really master this short course format. See the list for the full history of PBs from LCQ members.

See you all out there to do it all again next year.

[Show slideshow]

By Phil Hart.

I’m not competitive… well I was when I was 10 years old… but honestly it has only lasted 53 years (so far).

The horizontal hillclimb around Lakeside driver training circuit is not what you would call serious motorsport. It is a safe and fun sub 60 second run to test your Lotus and your driving skills. Due to other commitments, I missed the last DTC, so I was looking forward to NOT being competitive once again with all of my usual combatants.

The day is organised and run by Gideon Street (Lotus club computer guru) as well as Lotus Legend Paul Stokell. It always goes so smoothly until I decided to help Paul with scrutineering and handing out the number decals for the passenger side of the car. The smooth running of the day was obviously sabotaged as we managed to pick up an obsolete competitor number list and handed most people the incorrect car number decals. Off to a great start.

When running got underway, I discovered that one or two of my usual midfield combatants had suddenly found considerable talent since their last outing. This newfound talent obviously had nothing to do with an engine rebuild or two, but, I found myself lagging in the time sheets. As I said, because I am soooo uncompetitive, I managed to wring the neck out of my poor little Elise and found an extra half a second that I have never found before. To no avail, I still found myself to be a laggard.

DTC articles usually talk up the quick people like Evan, Gideon and Jason, or, today it would have been Byron Maxwell in his super fast Elise. Not today. I’m sticking with talking about us non competitive mid fielders. Take George Row for example. He was going around the pit area telling people that he was just beaten at the last event by his daughter-in-law Bridie. I had to inform George that he need not bother telling everyone that story as Bridie herself had already spread the word! I refuse to go down the slippery slope of spending thousands modifying my Elise to keep up with the talented “moustached one” driving his super 7. I love my Lotus just as it is. I will just have to find a new combatant in the field somewhere and be satisfied with beating “the moustached one” at golf!

DTC: A Rookies perspective

By Damion Tiernan.

Having spectated a handful of times at previous events, it was finally time to take my Lotus 7 replica and drive it in anger at the September round of the DTC.

It’s a really well organised and run event and having sifted through the comprehensive and straight forward paperwork and signing on via the Racers App I was signed up and ready to go.

Needless to say the nerves kicked in a few days before and I rang my mechanic on Friday morning in a panic to see if he could slip me to in to check my tune. I swear the Webbers were playing up! After he twiddled a few screws and did what ever Witch-doctor magic he does to them, he explained they were purring like a kitten. I’d have to find a different excuse now.

After loading up all the gear and getting to the track early enough to get setup, quite a few of the regular faces from previous events arrived and the day was to get underway. What I enjoy most about the Lotus Club overall and certainly events like this is the friendliness of the people. The banter usually starts early and being a first time competitor I wasn’t spared. Lindsay was quick to offer advice on whether I should or shouldn’t be breaking into turn 1, all whilst Andrew was over his should shaking his head… is this friendly advice or mind games to put me off my game… haha. All just fun.

Though when there was a huddle around the timing table to view the competitor list, although fun and playful, make no mistake, underneath they’re all wanting to be in that top spot.

This round was run in conjunction with Paul Stokell’s Driving Events competitors and both Paul and Gideon run an efficient and safety minded day that allows everyone to get as much time on track as possible. I managed a few runs before discovering a mis-behaving oil catch can that wanted to keep overflowing every three runs. So did the morning and then only managed one afternoon run on the longer track before deciding to park it for the day.

Byron Maxwell in his Lotus Elise appeared to be very quick and I believe won the day. I admit to a small amount of envy looking across at some of the Elise and Exige boys being able to just jump in the car to bang out some fast laps, all while I was mopping up my engine bay!

I relished the other club members coming over and chatting through what was happening with the car and discussing everything from my car concerns to things to consider for set up and running in future events.

Whilst we did a little bit of race number swapping at the start of the day, Dick wasn’t up for letting him take my number, but leaving it against my name so I could be recorded with his lap times.

I managed to find 5 sec from first run through to last run on the smaller track, which I felt pretty good about for a first time go. Hopefully I can sort the car issues in time for the next round.

[Show slideshow]

By Dick Reynolds.

Well what can I say but what a “covid” of an event!

Riddled with unexpected excitement, exciting arrivals, sad departures, thrilling tales and masses of excited anxious punters.

The day dawned rainy but dried quickly. The track looked clean and ready for action. Not happy about all the tyres to hit, but hey, don’t hit em! Gideon and Paul had it all prepped and we got under way about 9.30am. Porsche, Nissan, Mini, Lotus, BMW, Westfield, Kia, Subaru, Renault, Audi, Mazda, Toyota, you name it, it was there. Quite a deal of interest in a few cars. Some newly apparent Elise with Honda power, a Nissan fired Westfield, Jason’s Caterham R300 / 420 (more about that later) and a Yaris GR.

The Elise’s had a great day, with much spirited driving, not the least Phil Hart’s four wheel power slides out of the bottom corner – saw that from the front seat of my ride home – (more about that later).

Word got around that the Westfield had 400 horsepower under its green bonnet! Sure as hell looked like it flying up the first straight into turn one. Bit of sorting to do I suspect, but oh boy, what a weapon!

The Elise crew looked spectacular, with Gideon and Andrew in their powerful ones and the rest in various shades of motivation.

Jason and the Caterham never fail to excite, and he was absolutely on song this day. Cleaned up the lot of us with some spectacularly quick runs.

The Graham’s were out and about in the Datto 1600, and as usual tore the track up. Still waiting to see the Yaris! Maybe next time.

All the remaining Sevens were at the back of the field, as expected! Jon Young consistent as ever, Shane a bit concerned over the longevity of his rear axles – rightly so sadly as one expired at the end of the first session, along with my trailer lift home! Trailer you say? Yes, sadly the red machine expired at the start of the third run!

Not all was lost for me though! After some awkward wrangling I scored a run in the R300. Thank you Jason, made my day. That is some kind of monster, tamed only by the bravest! Not me obviously. Note: The red suited driver in the Facebook shots / video obviously a stand-in. My sincere apologies to Phil Hart, who generously offered me a seat in the Elise S. Right torn I was, but hey – the green machine! Bit hard to knock back!

I was parked between a murder of Minis. Lovely little jiggers, and the drivers appeared to have a great day of it.

It was nice to see a bevy of Germany’s finest, with lots of spirited reving of their sewing machine smooth engines. Bloody things probably got aircon as well!

Saw James’ D Type Replica off the line a few times. Still putting it through its paces in his inimitable style. Must confess I missed the Piccanto, MR2 ( saw it’s bum all morning due to it being number 37 though.) Cayman and Fossy’s XTR2. The times will no doubt tell the tale better than I. Nice to see the Audi S3 make an appearance and the Renault Megane. Have a bit of a thing about those Meganes having driven one once! As for the MX5’s, well, too damn quick for my liking!

All packed up and heading home at a respectable hour, so job done once again.

Congratulations to Jason, Gideon, Ken and Pauline Graham, Phil, Byron Maxwell and Fossy for their great times. Thank you to all the organisers for another great event, particularly Gideon, Andrew Row and Chris Johansen.

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